Quantum Quest Details Revealed

Although some of the more over-hyped animated features and vfx projects were hogging the spotlight at Comic-Con last week, a smaller indie 3-D, CG-animated large-format feature also revealed some interesting details during an entertaining panel. The underdog feature was Quantum Quest, an action-adventure film which uses actual space imagery from seven ongoing NASA and NASA/ESA space missions to tell its sci-fi/fantasy story.

Directed by Dan St. Pierre and Dr. Harry Kloor and written and conceived by Kloor, the feature also has the distinction of featuring the two actors who’ve played Captain Kirk in Star Trek‘William Shatner and Chris Pine’as well as the two Darth Vaders (James Earl Jones and Hayden Christianson) from the Star Wars Saga on the voice cast list! The top-notch cast also includes Tom Kenny, Doug Jones, Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Picardo, Sandra Oh, Jason Alexander, Brent Spiner, Neil Armstrong, Abigail Breslin, Garay Graham and Janina Gavankar.

Quantum Quest is described as a ‘simulated solar safari,’ a sci-fi action film which offers a scientifically accurate rendering of the solar system in 3-D stereoscopic. The project blends computer animation with the images captured during recent NASA space explorations including the international Cassini Huygens mission. Slated to debut in February 2010, the feature is animated by Taiwan’s Digimax and produced by Kloor’s Jupiter 9 Productions. NASA’s JPL has cooperated with the producers to ensure the scientific accuracy of the physics concepts, the correct engineering depiction of the Cassini spacecarft and Huygens probe, and the representation of NASA images.

The central character Dave (Chris Pine), is a photon who lives in the sun and is drawn into a galactic battle between The Core (William Shatner, the embodiment of the Sun, representing life and knowledge) and The Voice (Mark Hamill, the embodiment of Nothingness, who wishes for total destruction of the universe).

During the Comic-Con panel, Kloor and actors Doug Jones, Robert Picardo, Janina Gavankar and the film’s composer Shawn Clement (Open Season, Buffy the Vampire Slayer) talked about the project, showed a clip from the movie and offered a pre-taped interview with Armstrong. The crowd went absolutely wild when Chris Pine called the director’s iPhone to greet the fans. He talked about the joys of doing voice-over work for an animated feature and the importance of introducing young audiences to science in an entertaining way.

Kloor, who began on the project about 12 years ago, said that he had actually come up with the idea that photos ‘surf’ the solar winds two years before NASA proved it as a scientific fact. ‘Our purpose was to advance science and space literacy in a way that would appeal to kids and adults who have little interest in such subjects.’ Kloor”s previous sci-fi writing credits include Star Trek: Voyager and Earth: Final Conflict.